1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a process for coating solid forms of fabric care preparations or constituents thereof showing a tendency towards troublesome interactions.
In the context of the invention, fabric care preparations are understood to be detergents and washing aids. Detergents are in turn understood to be fabric detergents present in solid form, i.e., for example in powder or particulate form, such as granulate, flakes, noodles, as hollow beads, as porous beads optionally charged with liquid detergent ingredients, as shaped articles, for example tablets, bars, spheres, blocks, rigid or flexible strips or sheet-form structures, or constituents thereof, providing they are used in aqueous alkaline medium. The same also applies to preparations present in such forms for cleaning hard surfaces, such as, for example, dishwashing detergents, domestic cleaning preparations, cleaning and disinfecting preparations for sanitary fixtures. The washing aids include, for example, fabric pretreatment and after treatment preparations, bleaches, detergency boosters, fabric softeners, soil repellents, redeposition inhibitors or constituents thereof where they can lead to troublesome interactions with one another or with other constituents of these preparations, with packaging materials, with the surrounding atmosphere or with the skin of the user or where they should best be coated for other reasons, for example for masking an unpleasant odor, such as adheres for example to fatty amine or fish oil derivatives, or for preserving desirable but volatile fragrances. Accordingly, a coating generally assists in avoiding losses of performance and in improving shelf life and handling properties, for example by avoiding agglomerations, moisture penetration, tackiness or skin irritations.
2. Discussion of Related Art
German Patent Application P 34 22 055.0 relates to a fabric care preparation having detergency-boosting properties. This fabric care preparation contains a mixture of detergent ingredients which are embedded in organic, flexible, film-forming water-soluble polymers. In addition to the actual detergency-boosting agents, the fabric care preparations described therein contain additives for improving the solubility of the film-forming polymers in the wash liquor. The active agents themselves improve the removal of fatty, pigment-like and bleachable soil by enhancing the surfactant, bleaching and builder constituents. The fabric care preparations therein are produced in particular in the form of soluble, flexible sheet-form materials in which the film-forming polymer is essentially polyvinyl alcohol. In the event of prolonged storage in moist air, many of these fabric care preparations tend to become damp and tacky under certain conditions where they are able to take up atmospheric moisture.